2023 Post Per Day Experiment is Finished

Early in the year I had some ‘filler’ posts but realised that if I just soldiered on until I caught up with my regular postings I would easily meet my New Year Resolution to put up One Post Per Day, every day of 2023.

By February, I had Rail Run posts that were delayed by a few days as a backlog of other posts trundled through. I also had a lot of record, book, and movie short reviews in my pocket from Dry January. A sub-rule to the post-per-day rule was to have one kebab post every odd-numbered week and one fish and chips post every even numbered week until I had at least 26 of each.

Now that the remaining days on the 2023 calendar is filled with pending publications, I’ll squidge posts together so that, by 31 December, the events described will be back to within a day or two of when they happened. Every new one written will push one forward so I expect a lot of two-and-more posting days as the year concludes with a single Monthly Recap on 31 December.

For reference, the current last post of the year in several categories are (although these are all likely to move forward, now):

Category: Date Visited, Pending Till
Pub: 24 August, 23 December (120 days delay)
Fish: 24 August, 28 December (125 days)
Kebab: 23 August, 24 December (122 days)
TrigPointing: 24 August, 27 December (124 days)

By the way, I wrote this text, the 366th post of the year, the first week of February when it became obvious this would be easier than I initially thought. It is really effortless to dunk a 6 foot high rim.

2023 Fish/Kebab Experiment is Finished

Well, this nonsense continues unabated but the original New Year Resolution was to eat enough kebabs and fish and chips meals at new (to me) places to post a kebab review every odd numbered week and a fish place every even numbered week.

As of today, I reached the end of the year so will have to start shifting some forward (so you’ll start to see several per week, no longer segregated by the week’s divisibility by 2, on occasion throughout the remainder of 2023).

Success?

Short Book Review: Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

I watch zombies on public transport transfixed by TikTok videos. The movie, Infinite Jest (aka, ‘the Entertainment“), from which this prescient novel takes its title, could easily develop from this stupefying nonsense. Lot’s of other disturbingly astute predictions also creep in (Zoom calls, sure, but also the filters to disguise one’s appearance in them to mention just a couple).

At page 500 I found one of my old business cards from the FOM Instituut/AMOLF with the words, “if it works on salami it will work on anything.” Nothing to do with the book, but something Jaap Boon uttered during a group meeting I was leading the first time I tried to finish this monstrous tome. It still makes me grin.

And, it’s alright. If you are one of the few out there who still read, you should read it. Don’t skip the end notes!

Electrician stuff (2023-01-03 ppd filler)

Me and Jimi (in the background, lower right) have been installing a few extra lighting fixtures. These little things are great: turn off the breaker, cut the conductor of the live light, and fit all the blue lines into one of these connectors. Do the same with the brown into another then the ground conductors in a third and there is now a second lamp on the same line! Opa!

One of the resolutions (2023-01-02 ppd filler)

I have another resolution this year involving the Uke, Jackie’s guitar, other insruments, and some specific music:

Visions of Johanna by Bob Dylan (and other Dylan cuts)

When in Rome by Phil Ochs (and other Ochs cuts)

A Dying Cub’s Fan’s Last Request by Steve Goodman (and other baseball themed tunes)

Santeria by Sublime

Everything off Give ‘Em Enough Rope by the Clash.

Monthly Roundup, December 2022 & Some Year End Stats

97 (2023 year) miles, 1 (47) pubs, 0 (51) Rail Runs, 0 (35) commutes, 1 (12) fish and chips, 0 (11) kebabs.

The severe drop off in mileage following the ridiculous 100 mile run at the end of August correlates strongly with my deteriorating mental wellbeing and ballooning midsection. If I were assigning causation I would confidently assert that the 2nd one ➔ the 1st ➔ the 3rd (although the 1st feeds the 2nd, as well).

It was fucking cold for a couple of weeks this month. The snow that blanketed the area on the 11th continued to make the pavements in West Brom impassable for another week and a half but things were clear enough by the 15th for us to grab a meal out at a Viet Namese place before attending a carol recital at St Martin’s in the Bull Ring. The lighting was wrong for us to see the main attraction (the Burne-Jones windows) but it is still a lovely house (one of Chatwin‘s glories).

The house still has aspects of a construction site and we have yet to install the skirting boards, finish painting, or hang pictures but we managed to put up some Christmas shit. Other end-of-year trads we managed to fit in included drinking heavily (the eggnog Christmas morning and the beefy bloodies during the week along with Manhattans until the vermouth ran out), playing the Flagpole Christmas Albums (all Athens and Atlanta acts and highly recommended if only for Santa’s Out of Rehab), eating homemade biscotti di Prato dunked in Vin Santo as well as the recently memorialised sweet potato pie, and champagne with A Charlie Brown Christmas — I’ve seen this every year (that I’ve had a tele) since it was first broadcast in 1965…”lights, please.”

There are resolutions. I only stand by the ones made public (my reading goals, essentially).

There are also well wishes for many people out there most of whom read my notes here; I also hope for doom and sorrow to befall a substantial cadre of folk, some of whom read these musings. There’s little I can do to bring about any of it, but do know that if you belong to either group that I have you in my thoughts…and crosshairs.

Happy New Year.

2023 Resolutions Part 1

By the end of the year, I intend to finish Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce, and The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann.

I’ve started all three on multiple occasions, each, and never read to the end of any (but, never less than half, either).

“And Lo, for the Earth was empty of Form, and void. And Darkness was all over the Face of the Deep. And We said: ‘Look at that fucker Dance.’”